Left Unsaid
by I Am Not Amused
Summary: Some things that may have been running through the heads of Sarah Walker and Chuck Bartowski near the end of 3.07. Charah two-shot.
1. Sarah

"What can I say?" You asked him. "I have a type."

He was that type.

You could see how he might have thought you meant Bryce. He never realistically thought he could be in your life, no matter how often you desperately tried ("Two bed?" you had asked him coyly when it looked like Casey was going to lock you both up for treason) to make him see that he already was. If he would have even given himself a little credit, he would have at best thought you meant Bryce AND him.

But you just meant him.

There's a lot you want him to say in that next moment. Something - _anything_ - because you like Shaw but you love Chuck. And of course you like Shaw, what's not to like. He's handsome and charming and he likes you and it is hard to dislike someone who is so enthralled with you.

Of course, so was Chuck.

That's the problem. It's why you're waiting for him to say something. From here on out he'll always be the standard of comparison. If a guy is nice, it's unlikely he'll be as nice as Chuck. If a guy is funny, it's doubtful it'll be as endearing as Chuck's playful quips. If a guy is good looking, they'll likely know it and what was cute about Chuck was how little he realized his own attractiveness. And no one could pull off his earnest self-deprecation and equally earnest nervous confidence. Selflessness? Chuck was without peer.

You can't blame him for Hannah (Yes you can but you don't, she's pretty and nice and she likes him and doesn't avoid that fact like you have over the course of the past three years, and they're so _alike_). You were aloof and cold to him after Prague, and then Shaw came with his swizzle sticks and it was _easy_ like Bryce was _easy_. Not as ridiculously complicated as trying to love Chuck, with the messy complications of being asset and handler at the beginning, the messier complications of trying to be so close to someone that could reach in and take whatever he wanted for you and you'd willingly give it.

But that work made it more enticing - and more exhilirating those few moments that you gave in.

"What can I say?" You asked him. "I have a type."

And you waited for him to say or do _something_. Something like he had mumbled to you after you opened those vault doors, but he just smiled his lopsided grin and if anything could have damaged your calm, it was that. You wanted to grab his arm and spin him back around and scream at him, totally unlike the furiously tampered "You can't" you oozed schorchingly to him on the training mat.

"What do you think, Chuck? That this Hannah thing is going to end well?" You'd ask him incredulously.

"But-" He'd sputter, "Didn't you just say you were okay?" His voice would come out meek and confused, his facial expression turning to that wounded puppy dog look he would get when you told him stay in the car, and it would just make you angrier.

"It doesn't _matter_," You'd shout even though it did matter, "You _chose_ being a spy, you_ chose_ having the extraordinary life, you _chose _that. And now you _choose_ Hannah? You can't have it both ways, Chuck! Because she is going to get dragged into this, used against you like she was today and not in a way that she's going to conveniently _not_ see you in a dangeorus situation! And when you're out there on your own, without us, it's going to be even harder to deal with that kind of situation!"

"I mean, I don't know-" His uncertainty would just fuel your rage, blinding you, because it disarms you and you want to get this out, you don't want to be disarmed.

And since this is a fantasy, you can just let it all out and not worry about anything, "You chose _her_ over _me_. You want a normal life with _her_, but not one with _me_? You said you _loved _me not that long ago, Chuck, and I'm fairly certain I've made it _obvious_ that I feel the same way!"

Even in your fantasy, he would interrupt here - of course. His face would contort, his brow furrowing like it did so attractively the few times he would ever get truly angry, "You never said it, Sarah! God, you never said it! And yeah, maybe the kissing and the running away and the life together thing was implying it, but I wanted to _hear_ it! Is that so wrong? Maybe I would have left if I heard it!" He wouldn't say that, but you feel that way sometimes, so it feels good to hear it even if it is just in your own head, "And," he would never add, "I get the impression that Hannah is more likely to say it than _you_!"

Of course your subconscious fantasy would know how to hurt you the worst.

"Maybe that's true," You'd spit through clenched teeth, fighting back the pain because that's what you do with your emotions, "But it doesn't matter, Chuck. Because trying to have your normal Chuck life and your spy Chuck life isn't going to work! You've got to do it one way or the other!" You'd hesitate (even in your daydreams, you'd hesitate), "And I gave you a chance! I gave you the chance to do it one way. With me!"

"And leave Ellie?" He'd challenge, you just know he would because you would in his place and he said as much in the vault. "And Awesome? And Morgan? And my dad? And - I mean, I can't believe I'm saying htis - And Casey? I flash ten times in a _week_, Sarah! And maybe there wouldn't be as many Ring agents around Burbank with us gone, but if anything happened anywhere _near_ L.A. - God, Sarah, how could I live with myself?!"

His outburst at that point would deflate you. It's what you wanted - to hear him justify himself - and you wanted to be able to refute it when he did so, but as you hear it (of course this is only in your own head, but) you realize that he's right. Like he usually is about anything emotional.

"You-" It's your turn to stutter, and your lose your anger and you hang your head to avoid his gaze, his gaze that got him to admit what your middle name was when you hadn't spoken that information since you were seven years old, even if he didn't hear it, "You couldn't."

He'd soften at your deflation, his sharply furrowed brow retreating into those relaxed, kind eyes and you're his again and Shaw is a million miles away and who was Bryce again? and you see that hotel room swim around you when everything was just the two of you in that bed where he had offered to sleep on the floor (and who else would have made that offer, especially with feelings like his?).

"I couldn't, Sarah." He agrees and you never realized that in your angry conversation you'd been taking steps closer to each other and maybe there was one step back when you both quited but you're still close. Close enough to smell him and remember everything and you'd lean closer to capture his lips in yours (And who is Shaw, for that matter?)...

"I'll see you, Sarah," is all he says.

And you smile at him - because how can't you? Such a sentiment is so quintisentially Chuck, kind and accepting, with a hint of regret that maybe you're projecting - and say, "Bye, Chuck."

And later when Shaw is massaging your shoulders you note that his hands are rougher than Chuck's and you hate that you notice it, you deflect the feeling by saying, "We both know how dangerous this is."

And maybe you should have added, "Not just the spy aspect of this, but it's dangerous because you're not Chuck. And I'll constantly be comparing you to him, and constantly searching for how he reacts to us, and seeing how you react to him reacting to us and..."

"Relax, Sarah," He says.

And you do, because it's so much easier than Chuck.

Even if all you can smell right now - inexplicably - is a ratty hotel room.


	2. Chuck

"What can I say?" She asked you. "I have a type."

And the small smile that graces her features gives you hope, a fool's hope that she means you, but as you go through the list of the other men you've seen her with, you see a pattern that doesn't include you. One that starts with Bryce, goes through Barker and ends with Shaw. Conventionally attractive men, confident in themselves and their abilities, incredibly brave and top-of-the-lin capable at their duties. You know the small smile and that nervous glance to her left she gives when she says something she doesn't want to means she's trying to imply you, but when you think about it, she does have a type and, if anything, you're the exception rather than the rule.

There's so much you want to say in the space between those next words because you're looking at her and for maybe the first time since Prague you see _your_ Sarah and you know she said that Prague was a compulsive mistake that wouldn't happen again but that little smile is _your _smile and for a moment you'd be okay with being Hector Calderon if it just meant that smile forever and ever, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

The movement in the corner of your eye over the monitors is Shaw and you don't - well, you won't - hate him, but it stifles anything you might have said in that space.

Something like, "You can't say things like that, Sarah."

She'd look a little confused, because she never liked to admit what she was saying even when she was saying it. Even less now, after you walked away from her, "What do you mean?" She'd ask, and you'd believe she didn't know what you meant if you didn't know about Jenny Burton and no olives on her pizza and that night in the hotel room.

She'd always make you work for it and that's what makes it impossible and so damn tantalizing. Hannah was _easy_ - not like that - and it was a new thing for you. With Jill, in college, you had pretended to be cooler than you actually were, had to work for every kiss and every smile. With Lou, it was almost like easy, except the Intersect was new and the missions were new and they interfered with everything and even when it seemed like it could be simple, well, you always were easily and obviously and transparently jealous about other guys.

With Sarah it was excrutiatingly difficult. The cover. The fake kissing, the fake hugging, the fake holding hands, the fake touching in general. All of it threw your mind into overdrive because it was so easy to _do_ but impossibly hard to _understand_. Where the lines were, blurred and jagged and jumping here and there to the point where you could keep walking a straight line and just cross over without even meaning to. For a day - that day, with the hotel - for all of twenty-four hours, it was like an explosion went off in your head, like you had flashed on everything and nothing all at once, but it was just Sarah and it hadn't been easy, wasn't going to be easy, but for that one day it was easy in the now. More than easy. Perfect. Transcendent.

"You can't say things like that, Sarah," You would say.

"What do you mean?" She'd ask.

"Because," In your head you're smoother than you really are, don't stutter over your words. You always say the things you mean, there's very little filter between a thought an an action for you, but in your head you're able to refine it down to a perfect tip, "It'll just give me hope."

Her breath would hitch (you hope) and her eyes would go wide and her lips would close together more tightly than usual, a sure sign that she was thinking or trying not to think, "Hope for what, Chuck?"

Her voice would be breathless, just slightly, and you'd be able to smell the artificial fruit flavors of yogurt on her breath, but her tone would still be curious, leading you along and it'd infuriate you if you could ever get mad at her for showing interest in what you had to say.

"Hope for us, Sarah," She'd open her mouth, no doubt to say something about Hannah, but you'd interrupt and she'd let you. She let you interrupt her a lot, far more than she'd ever let anyone else ever talk over her, and you hope it has something _good_ to do with you, rather than something, say, annoying, "And I know that's unfair. I know I don't deserve hope, after the way I treated you in Prague," She'd flinch, but you'd keep talking, knowing at least she had lied when she told you that you couldn't hurt her, "And with everything going on with Hannah now. I know it's not fair for me to say something like that."

You know if you would pause in that moment she'd end the conversation. Something sharp, but smart like, "You're right, Chuck, it's not fair," and she'd walk away, so you keep on plowing through, even in your head you can't stop talking, trying to reach some sort of point, "But, Sarah? I'll always be crazy about you. I'll never stop wondering if I should have got on that train with you. Some days I wake up and look in the mirror and call myself Hector Calderon, just to get used to the sound of it," You'd smile here, hope it wasn't too lopsided.

Even in your fantasies you wouldn't know her reaction to that statement, so her face remains locked in a sort of neutral passivity in your mind's eye and you just have to continue, so you don't have to think over her possible reactions. Happy would fill your heart, and it would be close to bursting, but all the implications and difficulties surrounding that idea would drown you. Sadness would just let you remember how much you had hurt her. Uncertainty, maybe a glance at Shaw would just kill you.

"And I do this, I know I do this. I get, I don't know, _tired_ by how much work trying to be together with you is and I date someone else because it seems more real," You'd breathe deep, think about grabbing her hand, decide against it, "And you told me this was real," You settle for indicating the space between the two of you, "I didn't - I _don't_ - God, if I had known you'd be asking me that question that night? If I had known you'd ask me to run away with you, I'd have never put the Intersect in my head. I'd have destroyed it, like Bryce told me to," You look helplessly at her, begging her with your eyes to understand, "But then..." You'd trail off, your words finally running out.

She'd finish your thought. She always did (always would) understand you, "But then you'd worry every time you looked around, wondering if there was someone or something you'd flash at. You'd worry any time something bad happened around here, wondering if you could have stopped it with the Intersect."

You'd smile, relieved, "Yeah," You'd agree.

"Chuck," She'd say with a tone that was both placating and soothing and you'd wonder how even when she talked down to you it seemed like the most beautiful words you'd ever heard, "You can't save everyone."

"Yeah, well," You'd shrug, unconvinced. To accept that would be to give up, for you. If you stopped trying to save everyone, you'd be giving up yourself. Without that idea that you could save everyone, you might stop trying to save anyone, and you try to communicate that in your shrug, but it's just a shrug and it can't possibly say all that, "So far, so good, right?" You'd ask, forcing a laugh.

"Chuck," You might imagine she'd say in a slightly reprimanding manner.

"Look, Sarah," You'd say, exasperated and tired and angry because Shaw is still in your peripheral and yes, they're disgustingly perfect for each other but for a moment, for twenty-four impossible hours, you were _perfect_ perfect for each other and you can't help but think that if Morgan didn't think of _mi casa es su casa_ applied to wallets that everything would be different (better? maybe), "I can't stop myself from trying to protect people. That's why I took the Intersect 2.0. That's why I tried to get the team back together. That's why I walked away in Prague. I could _protect_ everyone, Sarah!"

Her eyes would water, like when she thought you died in that car explosion, and you'd retreat, stumbling over your words to take it all back, "You didn't protect _me_, Chuck," and if anything could have surprised you it would have been that sort of statement (and you know this is all in your head and it's just what you want to hear from her, but), the idea that Sarah Walker needed protecting.

"But-" You'd stutter, "But, you're _Sarah_, you're the strongest person I know you don't-" You'd realizes what you were about to say and you want to stop but can't, "You don't need protecting," you finish blandly.

"I needed protecting from you, I guess," She'd say, but not coldly. She'd still be turning away, though, and maybe you'd take that extra step to her and grab her arm and pull her to you and take her lips in yours and...

All you do is smile at her, because she's Sarah Walker and she deserves happiness and maybe that smile is just for you, just yours. You want to believe so. But, if it isn't, if it's even a little bit for Shaw, you couldn't take that away. You're protecting her. She's Sarah Walker and she's the strongest person you know, but she needs protecting from you. Despite her contrarian opinion, you can hurt her, and you don't want to.

"See ya, Sarah," You say, and try to be honest and endearing and smiling when you say it.

"Bye, Chuck," She says and maybe that smile is just for you but maybe it isn't.

Later, when you're kissing Hannah, you smile at her. She's nice, and she likes you for you and not for any sort of idea of you, or any misrepresentation of you. She actually likes you and not for spy stuff or stupid acts of cowardly bravery, but for underachieving BuyMore Chuck. Stanford dropout Chuck. She likes _you_ and it's easy and it floats by and that makes you smile.

But for one second, all you can smell is a seedy hotel room.


End file.
